Begone, Ralph Waldo Emerson

    So sorry, RWE, but the Sage of Concord has been relegated into even further obscurity, now that students taking the PSAT won't have to deal with "difficult, obscure" vocabulary words such as sagacious.   Why bother with etymology and derivation when most of the language spoken is in words no longer than 4 or 5 letters.  Such a change should come as no surprise, following on the heels of the phasing out of cursive writing. The core of education has become so common that the Newspeak of Orwell's "1984"  is closer than ever.